Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to hop on and wish you all a wonderful Merry Christmas! I pray that you will all have a safe and happy holiday and most of all, that we will all remember the reason we are celebrating!

Lily Grace is doing great, but she's still cooking. ha! My sweet sister wrote an update on her blog so you can read that for more details from the last few days. We are enjoying lots of family time tonight and tomorrow and whenever Lily decides to come, it'll be just fine.

Merry Christmas!

Not Me! Monday

We have no baby yet, but hopefully she'll be here in the next couple of days! Right now we are just enjoying this busy Christmas week.

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One night last week Jacob and I planned a date night at home. We got out the popcorn popper and decided to try a new recipe for Italian herb popcorn. I mixed up the herb and olive oil mixture while Jacob popped the popcorn. When the popcorn was ready, I poured the herb mixture over and Jacob was just supposed to stir it to coat the popcorn...

Well, he decided that stirring wasn't getting the job done, so he most certainly did not start vigorously shaking the popcorn popper. And as if that still was not good enough, he didn't then violently shake it!  

Nope, my husband would never do such a silly thing as that! The next thing we knew, popcorn was not all over the kitchen. NO, the popcorn popper lid would never come flying off, even with such violent shaking!

Not only would the above never happen at our house, we never would let the popcorn spill on the still-burning-hot-stove eye! We certainly did not have scorched popcorn and a blaring smoke alarm on our hands!

Nope, not us! 

(this picture was taken after most of the scorched popcorn had been cleared away)

Visit MckMama for more Not Me! Mondays.

No Baby Yet...

...but she could come anytime!!

The last few days I've been a busy bee trying to get all the last minute preparations for Christmas and bringing Lily home finished. I've been having lots of contractions, some consistent, and some not for most of this week. We are hoping and praying that Lily will make her debut in the next couple of days! We are sooo excited!!

Also, please keep my family in your prayers. My Memaw's brother passed away on Thursday. His funeral is this morning. Memaw is having a really hard time and she is now the only one in her family living.

Ya'll have a great weekend!

Just for the JOY of it - homemade gifts

I love making homemade gifts! They just seem more personal and special, but they also usually save money! Here are some of the gifts I've made this year.

Brownie mixes in a jar

I made the labels with cardstock and Christmas paper from Hobby Lobby. 

I think the burlap and rope added a neat old-timey touch.

These bags of goodies are for our neighbors and church family. I love using the clear bags, they just look festive to me!

I also made the labels using paper from Hobby Lobby (it was all 1/2 price of course!) In case you're wondering, I did not hand write all of the labels. I downloaded some free fonts to my computer from kevinandamanda.com and then just printed out the labels on cardstock. So easy!

I made these bags for all of Jacob's students and youth orchestra kids (about 60 altogether!) I found the bag toppers at Hobby Lobby (of course! ha!). It was so fast and easy to fill sandwich sized baggies with goodies and then just staple the bag topper on!

I find lots of JOY in giving, but I especially love it when I'm able to add homemade touches to the gifts!

Visit Good, True and Beautiful for more Just for the JOY of it posts!!

Pregnancy Update: 37 weeks

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers for our family the last few days. They mean so much! I'm hoping to write a longer post with memories and pictures of these last days that we don't want to forget, but today I have tons to do, so I'm just going to post my belly picture from last week.

Lily Grace is in position and can come any day! 

We are so excited!! 

Oh, and we had an ultrasound and she has huge feet! ha.

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more Wordless Wednesdays.

Update and Obituary

This is Myra checking in for Kelly.  She's insanely busy supporting and being strong for her husband and his family.  They are grieving, but Nanny Hoover left behind such a legacy of grace. 

She was truly a woman of God who was married to a military man/veteran.  She never nagged him about going to church with she and their children, but she prayed for him every day.  He finally went with her one Sunday and his life was changed.  He became a wonderful pastor who God used to impact many lives in this area.

He told me tonight that his heart is broken, but he has "the peace that passes all understanding."  He's just precious.

Here is the obituary link.

The funeral is on Tuesday at 1 PM.  I know that Kelly and Jacob and all of the extended family would appreciate your prayers.

First Night with Jesus

Jacob's dear sweet Nanny went to be with Jesus this afternoon. How wonderful, yet so incredibly hard. We are very thankful that she was surrounded by family while she peacefully met her Savior. Thank you all for your prayers. They mean so much right now!

Psalm 116:15

 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.